Augmented reality technologies, such as the Microsoft HoloLens, are already finding applications in serious medicine, including complex surgery. The ability to overlay computer generated images over the real world has profound consequences in medicine. Preoperative images can be viewed during surgery and doctors can review images of patients from the past to compare to the present.

A company called RealMax has developed an augmented reality headset that has a wider field of view than any other currently on the market. This may be important in clinical practice, as there are numerous pieces of equipment and all kinds of screens that currently inhibit an operating room, for example. An augmented reality system that can cover the whole span of a person’s field of view would be a big step for this field of technology.